Bottlehead Crack First Timer Builder - Buzzing Hum Sound (Resolved)

[anthonycym]

This is my first ever soldering work. Thanks to the clear documentation, the build process is smoother than expected. However, I can hear a loud buzzing hum sound through the headphone (a 300 ohm one) no matter it's with/without tubes and rca input. Wondering what has been done wrong. Would like to seek your advice. Thank you!

 

[Paul Birkeland]

The solder joint where the black wires meet on the headphone jack has not been adequately flowed out and one wire is not being captured by solder there.

It's extremely common to have a buzzing noise if one of the 220uF/250V filter caps isn't well connected. This may also happen if you have nothing plugged into the RCA jacks and you turn the volume pot all the way up.

-PB

 

[anthonycym]

Thanks for your advice. I tried re-do the headphone jack with more solder. And the annoying hum magically goes away!

After some brief listening, the Crack already sounds amazing to my ears. Can't imagine how much better it could be improved with the Speedball upgrade (which is going to happen later as I already got the upgrade kit on hand).

Thanks again!